‘Daughters of Destiny: The Journey of Shanti Bhavan’ a recipient of TV Academy Honors

Daughters of Destiny, the Netflix documentary chronicling the lives of five young Shanti Bhavan women, has been selected for the prestigious “Television with a Conscience” award by The Television Academy Honors! Honorees were recognized at a special presentation and reception held May 31 at NeueHouse Hollywood in Los Angeles, Calif. “Daughters of Destiny” is directed by Oscar winner Vanessa Roth, with music by acclaimed artist A.R. Rahman.

“Daughters of Destiny: The Journey of Shanti Bhavan,” chronicles the lives of five Indian girls from impoverished families brought up at the Shanti Bhavan Children’s Project in Tamil Nadu, has been chosen by the Television Academy for “leveraging the dynamic power of television to inspire social change.” The Shanti Bhavan Children’s Project is a residential education program built to uplift children from India’s lowest socioeconomic class. The school’s children come from families earning less than $2 a day, who have been trapped in poverty for generations.

The 2018 honorees were selected from a record number of submissions and represent some of the most meaningful and relevant series, programs and documentaries of the past year, including: Andi Mack, Daughters of Destiny, Forbidden: Undocumented & Queer in Rural America, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, LA 92, One Day at a Time, and 13 Reasons Why.

Television Academy Honors celebrates programming across numerous platforms and genres that addresses the complex challenges and important social issues facing society in a compelling and impactful way. Showrunners and producers are honored for channeling the power of television to explore these issues via captivating and thoughtful storytelling that advances positive change. Established in 2008, this prestigious award is separate and distinct from Emmy’s recognition of television excellence.

The four-part series is among the recipients of the Television Academy’s 11th Annual Television Academy Honors, which celebrates and recognizes programming that creates awareness, enlightens, educates and/or positively motivates audiences.

Indian American businessman Abraham George founded the school in 1997, and his son, Ajit George, now serves as the director of operations of the innovative school, which takes in low-income children at age four and supports their education until they have graduated from college.

This documentary chronicles the lives of five girls from the “untouchable” caste balancing their lives between poverty at home and modern upbringing at Shanti Bhavan. Over the course of seven years of filming, the girls’ stories, according to the Television Academy, explore fate, free will, human potential and the universal common longing for opportunity, purpose and meaning.

The series, it adds, also delves into issues of education, equity, social justice, gender roles, adolescence, identity, social discrimination, poverty alleviation, human rights, leadership, citizenry and community empowerment.